Roadshow (Yellowthread Street Mystery)

Rating:
Summary: Roadshow
Review: This Yellowthread Street entry falls slightly below expectations set by many of the other ones. It rides a straight line--ratcheting up the suspense, mind you--to a bombastic finish without any emotional punch. Instead of "The Italian Job", Marshall tries to offer up "The Hong Kong Job", as a group of faceless bombers rip up the streets of the (fictional) Hong Bay, presumably for some nefarious purpose that merely looks mad, but suggests some secret profit. The problem that Detective Harry Feiffer has with this activity is not so much the damage to his city--heck, somehow traffic runs faster with these explosive changes to the street layout!--but the rising death toll.

It's all as engaging and bizarre as what's presented in any Yellowthread Street book Marhsall has ever written, including a subplot to keep Auden and Spencer busy--at a monastery with a ceiling that's quickly filling up with bulletholes courtesy of some giggling hand-cannon wielder who is always one step ahead of, as well as one floor above, the two frazzled detectives--but the revelations at the finale drag things down. In fact, the subplot gets trite, and is wrapped extra-early, seemingly so Auden and Spencer can amble over to work on a real case, the bombings. Material evidence is sparse (read as obliterated), and clever ideas, like deciding the names of the streets targeted could be significant, don't seem to amount to much.

Suddenly, with the clock ticking, the finale involves mad dashes through the city, one of our brave cops unknowingly at ground zero doing some detecting, and guns blazing in the street as cops confront the bombers, reminiscent of that famous shoot-out in the film Heat. It's very exciting, and not necessarily the clverest ending Marshall has ever served up.